Josh Freed: Patented ways to drive me crazy

I picked up a travel tube of Colgate “sensitive” toothpaste recently and unscrewed the cap. But there was a plastic, notched seal blocking the opening that puzzled me.

I twisted it. I pulled, pushed and picked at it with my nails, then with a steak knife — and finally I gnawed at it with my teeth. I even called in my teenage son, but it seemed hermetically sealed.

We studied it as closely as safecrackers and finally cracked the vault. The very top of the toothpaste cap had a small slot that fit perfectly onto the notched seal on the tube — then turned like a wrench to open it.

It was child’s play for a mechanical engineer. But why was it so difficult, and who were they trying to protect from getting in? Is there an epidemic of children suffering from toothpaste overdose?

It’s just one of an endless number of tiny design hassles, designed to drive me crazy.

For instance:

In fruit stores, I find opening those flimsy plastic vegetable bags a tough task for someone like me with 10 thumbs. It’s tricky to separate the slippery two sides of the bag, which you must rub gently between your fingers.

I usually face the wall so I won’t be seen fumbling by others who aren’t “bag-challenged.” Making it worse are fruit store employees who love to flick every bag open dramatically — with a snap of their wrist — like magicians.

They’ll bag every apple and blueberry individually, then twirl the bags in somersaults to seal them — just to remind you you can’t. Why don’t they give courses — Bag-Opening 101?

Public bathrooms in movies are the headquarters for baffling designs. Take those electronic-eye faucets, which work only when you move.

Often I walk up to the sink and wait — but nothing happens. So I wave my hands in the air, then under the faucets, then over the faucet, then in circles like I’m running an exercise class. If someone arrived from 15 years ago and saw me waving, they’d think I was insane — because these gadgets didn’t exist back then.

“Officer — help! There’s a lunatic conducting a symphony in the bathroom!”

After one recent movie, I was waving my hands wildly at the faucets when a man slipped up to me like I was a child and pointed under the sink — at a foot pedal.

Many newfangled hand dryers do have a hand on them that indicates where to wave, but you’ll see people conducting orchestras anyway — because half the machines are broken. A friend puts each hand under two different dryers, and eventually one works.

Finally there are those big industrial rolls of toilet paper obviously designed by accountants — because the paper is delicately perforated so exactly one flimsy tissue snaps off. You have to keep turning the giant industrial roll around — and snapping off more single tissues — till you’ve sworn never to use that bathroom again, which is just what the accountants wanted.

Hotel rooms are also design hell. Every last hotel air-conditioner/heater on earth is different, to make sure you can’t figure them out. There’s usually a remote control hidden somewhere under the bed, but even if you find it, the battery is dead.

Instead, you have to fiddle with the machine itself, which is high up on the wall, so you need to stand on a chair to reach it. But then it has countless buttons with pictures of fans, thermometers and snowflakes that would have confused Steve Jobs.

All this is entirely so you have to call the concierge and tip him $3, since he’s the only person who knows how it works — and he’s also the one who hid the remote and took out the batteries.

There are countless other tiny design hassles devised every day, like those new Post-it notes with sticky stuff alternating on different parts of the paper — but you don’t know where. Or packing tape where the seam is so invisible you need tweezers and a magnifying glass to lift the tape up — in tiny shreds.

Finally, there’s one of life’s oldest design mysteries. I’ve spent a lot of my life kneeling down to re-tie my shoelaces, which unravel no matter how tightly I pull them, because they’re made of springy material that’s designed to untie itself (unless you make a kid’s double-knot).

Worst are sneakers that have tiny plastic eyelets so you can’t get a slightly shredded lace back in unless you lick and twirl it (yech) — or use scotch tape.

You’d think some genius could build a better shoelace — though I’m told there’s a secret second method sailors have to tie their shoes. So if you know it, please come by and show me.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.